Joined: 09 Jul 2006Posts: 9718Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 5:31 pm Post subject:

I was brought up VERY VERY Christian. To the point that I didn't listen to secular music until I was 14. However, about the time I started showing bipolar symptoms, I started having SHITTY experiences at church (southern baptist by the way). I mean really bad - being called a whore, being ignored when crying in a prayer circle, etc. So I got out.

The thing is, I have seriously had intense religious experiences. I've seen at least one unexplainable miracle based on prayer. But now that I am medicated, I have to question ALL my experiences and feelings of that time. Questioning all of them and generally tossing them out, I have to find another explanation for the miracle - perhaps brain affecting body?

So in the end, I just leave religion alone. I don't want anything to do with it. I am actually a bit hostile towards it. It takes quite a bit for me to respect a very religious person. I have found a few wonderful and loving Christians and one hippie that is of the Hindu persuasion that is just wonderful in the same way. It has not influenced me to seek religion again.

And what is really, really annoying is that with my anxiety I occasionally have the gripping terror that the rapture has happened and I was left behind. I [u]hate[/i] that that was instilled into me. I am happy to report that I haven't had that reaction in a while but it used to be quite common._________________Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael

drat - now i am going to be obsessing about remembering what that thing i read was. there was a chunk when the narrator? protagonist? memorialist? whoever - remembered being a little boy and believing firmly in the rapture, so if he came home from school and his mom wasn't right there, he would run around in a panic looking for her, convinced that she had been raptured away and he had been left behind.

what a shitty thing to do to a little kid.

just remember, las - in the event of the rapture, probably most of the sinfest forum will be left behind, so you will still have people to talk to on the interwebs. and if god _does_ take you after all, we promise to feed your cat._________________aka: neverscared!
a flux of vibrant matter

Atheist here, with strong bonds with the catholic church in the past. I was in the seminary from 11 to 13. Then hit puberty and a mix of lazyness and "omg, girls!" pulled me out.

After that my faith faded out slowly until now. As legacy of that time I am familiar with the church and have some knowledge about their rites and ways of thinking.

But some circumstancies have forged me strong in the atheist hardline (no gods, no ghosts, no supernatural beings of any kind, no things like magic or faeries or similar).

Because life is ironic as hell now I am working in the office of a church, where I try to mantain a low perfil. For now I have a full bag on my back with plenty patience (and hipocrisy. I am aware of that)_________________Be mellow
Be compassionate

Last edited by Arkhron on Fri Mar 29, 2013 6:21 pm; edited 1 time in total

I have noticed that a lot of the nonreligious people I've met that are the most hostile towards religions are the ones that had an extreeeeeme religious upbringing. It's totally understandable to me.

I was always the outsider. Always. I have a notoriously bad memory, but one of my elementary school memories I've actually retained was being surrounded by a bunch of classmates after admitting I didn't believe in god. "Wow, really?" "Why not?" "Do you know that means you're going to hell?"

I think, in the end, the big difference is that I was never really betrayed. Tricked, yes, many times... But I never did believe it with all my heart and soul and then have it all ripped away. How could I when I was always looking in from the outside?

I was only ever tricked by people... and it's easy enough to cut one person out of your life (or even several, heh). Uprooting your entire belief system has to be a lot more painful and complicated.

In the end, I like to think I'm pretty affable about other people's religions. The only time I have a problem with them is when they want to inflict them onto unwilling people or use them as excuses to do and say terrible things._________________Samsally the GrayAce

that's a good observation. i am also atheist, but i never had much belief. my mom went to church regularly, and i think it was important to her, but she pretty much left things up to my brother's and my own consciouses. (she did have a brief period in which she though it might be a good idea if i went to church to meet a nice guy to marry, but i think i managed to get the idea across that this would probably not be a good start for a marriage without really getting much into religious beliefs. fortunately, she was also never big on pushing me to get married.)

i also seem to have been spared any horrific experiences with religious folk in my childhood (well, other than the encounters with that one minister's obnoxious children, but that horror had nothing to do with theology).

you guys make me really happy for a quiet life._________________aka: neverscared!
a flux of vibrant matter

Joined: 09 Jul 2006Posts: 9718Location: I have to be somewhere? ::runs around frantically::

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 6:42 pm Post subject:

mouse wrote:

just remember, las - in the event of the rapture, probably most of the sinfest forum will be left behind, so you will still have people to talk to on the interwebs. and if god _does_ take you after all, we promise to feed your cat.

I actually find that very comforting and sweet. Seriously, that makes me feel peaceful and everything. Can I hug you now?

I found this on Facebook the other day and I find this comforting too.
_________________Before God created Las he pondered on all the aspects a woman might have, he considered which ones would look good super-inflated and which ones to leave alone.
After much deliberation he gave her a giant comfort zone. - Michael

so when constantine (i think it was constantine) made christianity the official religion of the roman empire, it was because he had never believed in a god or gods before he experienced something that made him believe the christian god had power? he couldn't have believed in all of them, but decided his best bet was to go with the most powerful? how about people who change religions? all the people who converted from paganism or the like never actually believed their supposed gods existed, that they chose christianity because it was the only one with a 'real' god, and not the one with the best god?

I wasn't talking to Constantine, and I wasn't talking to "people who change religions", and you are really stretching very far to respond as though I've claimed they must not have really believed in their first religion.

You'll notice, perhaps, that I didn't correct Felgraf? You'll notice, also, that I didn't correct Samsally? I think it is perfectly reasonable to deliberately reject a religion because you find its tenets immoral. And for a person to who is a believer already to deliberately reject a God because they consider His actions immoral is exceedingly courageous and admirable.

I was talking to bitflipper, whose phrasing makes it dead clear that his issue is with a god "demonstrably exhibit[ing]" himself, which has nothing to do with morality. His position is that he doesn't believe in a god because no god has ever demonstrated his existence. And again, I state, that would be perfectly fine, if that was all he'd said.

It is not perfectly fine to add "oh, and he's gotta be moral" as an afterthought, a second condition when he knows the first will never be met. I think it is false. I think it is shallow. I think it trivializes the struggle of heroic people who have the conviction to judge a God, even when they know He holds control over their life and fate._________________"To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others."
- Anne-Sophie Swetchine

Naturally, I'm a neo-Calvinist and believe God wants me to be rich and screw all you guys. I have privilege because I'm a good person, and if you don't it's because God hates you! No guilt!_________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. Iíll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

just remember, las - in the event of the rapture, probably most of the sinfest forum will be left behind, so you will still have people to talk to on the interwebs. and if god _does_ take you after all, we promise to feed your cat.

I actually find that very comforting and sweet. Seriously, that makes me feel peaceful and everything. Can I hug you now?

I found this on Facebook the other day and I find this comforting too.

Good thoughts! My happy thought is: If nothing I do matters, then I don't have to be concerned about accomplishing anything. Just being alive is a notable accomplishment, everything else is a happy extra._________________::lesser crisis mode::

simple. the most prominent depiction of a Muslim in the Western world is Osama bin Laden, who had zero interest in coexisting with anyone. it's a stereotype, born from limited media representations and political fearmongering.

which just goes to show that just 'cuz you're atheist doesn't mean you're rational.

I figure that is probably it, but the peope I see doimg this are often otherwise so very rational that I have to do a double take._________________::lesser crisis mode::

Naturally, I'm a neo-Calvinist and believe God wants me to be rich and screw all you guys. I have privilege because I'm a good person, and if you don't it's because God hates you! No guilt!

Oh fuck you have brought up memories of one of the few things that make me rage. (I realize you do not actually believe this, and you are being silly).

Prosperity Gospel churches. "If you're a good person and worship us, God Will Make You Rich!"

Mother FUCK those things make me angry. I think it's in part because the bible, explicitly, REPEATEDLY, states that it DOESN'T FARKING WORK THAT WAY. This even isn't, like, an aside line in a single book (Don't shave your beard! Tatoos are evil). This is, like, one of the fucking CORE MESSAGES.

"God causes the sun to shine on the good and the wicked, and the rain to fall upon the just and the unjust."

"A man cannot serve two masters. He will either love one and hate the other, or hate one and love the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon."

And then there's the whole bit with him, you know, flipping out on the money changers in the temple (the one time in the entirety of the book where he gets ANGRY. In the stories, he doesn't even get angry AT SATAN.)

I. Just. ARRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH.

This doesn't even have anything to do with me feeling I'm a christian, this is just frustration because the book that they are claiming is LITERALLY TRUE (and a lot of prosperity gospel churches would do this!) EXPLICITLY SAYS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT THEY ARE CLAIMING.

*foams*_________________"No, but evil is still being --Is having reason-- Being reasonable! Mousie understands? Is always being reason. Is punishing world for not being... Like in head. Is always reason. World should be different, is reason."
-Ed, from Digger

If god does exist, but will condemn you to suffering despite living a good life: Fuck him, REBELLION TIME. Now, where did they leave the lance of longinus....

Sort of a reverse-pascal's wager, I suppose?

I've always maintained (well, at least, since I first gave the matter some serious thought in college, anyway) that any god worthy of my worship must demonstrably exhibit moral behavior superior to my own. There have been many men and women throughout history who have passed that simple test, but no gods or goddesses, as yet.

So there have been plenty of gods and goddesses you've believed in, but they exhibited moral behaviour inferior to yours, so you didn't worship them?

You're conflating two ideas in a way that trivializes both of them. You do not worship a deity because none have demonstrated that they exist to you. Period. That's perfectly fine and reasonable. But morality has shit-all to with it in your case, because you will never be in the situation that you are convinced God exists and yet you reject Him because you think He's immoral.

It's like when you say you wouldn't give James Cameron a blowjob for five million dollars. It's a very safe and "moral" thing to say, because he isn't actually offering, but if he did, you'd change your tune right quick.

Thank you for knowing my thoughts better than myself and making them so clear, Sojobo. So tell me what I want for lunch, now._________________I am only a somewhat arbitrary sequence of raised and lowered voltages to which your mind insists upon assigning meaning